


A More Perfect World

by thedevilchicken



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 10:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8009425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it's almost like she remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A More Perfect World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedibuttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



> Set between F&F6 and F&F7, while they're all living at 1327 and Letty doesn't have her memories yet.

"Hey, Mia," Letty says, as she's on her way through the kitchen to grab a cold beer from the refrigerator. It's warm outside 'cause it's summer under a big blue sky in a back yard Letty thinks maybe she knew once. Everyone tells her she practically lived there, before, but what she remembers is Owen Shaw more than Dominic Toretto. 

"Hey, Letty," Mia says, standing at the kitchen counter where she's chopping fresh herbs for dinner with a wicked-looking mezzaluna, a handle in each hand. If Letty thinks real hard about it, sometimes it's almost like she remembers Mia telling her the names of all the weird shit in the kitchen, somewhere that might've been here, wondering who the hell used a pestle and mortar except Mia did when she made pesto for pasta, and she still thinks the garlic press looks like some kind of implement of torture. 

Sometimes, it's almost like she remembers. Bits and pieces have been coming back to her, but this house they're in is not one of them.

Letty's not a great cook and they both know it, so she doesn't offer to help. She did once, right after she got there, and pretty soon after she totally understood why Mia looked at her so damn skeptically when she offered 'cause even her vegetable chopping skills turned out to leave a lot to be desired. Mia was great about it, though; they stood there at the counter for something close to an hour, chopping every damn vegetable in the house till Letty got the technique at least halfway down, guiding the knife with the back of her opposite hand. Mia's a good teacher for the same reason she's a great mom: she's patient. 

Then Mia showed her how to dice an onion, how to skin a tomato, how to mince garlic with a knife, and sometimes she helps with that when she's feeling adventurous and her hands aren't all covered in motor oil. But today, Mia's finished the rest of the chopping already. All she's got left are the herbs 'cause everything else is sitting there on the counter in neat piles on chopping boards or scooped into bowls, waiting. Mia's kitchen's always a whole lot more orderly than Letty feels, that's for sure.

Dom's workshop is kinda the same way. Everything has a place, all the wrenches lined up big to small, even the oil cans have a place they need to be. Dom acts like she's got a place there, too, like she's a missing wrench he can slip right back into the rack and everything'll be fine again and maybe everything _is_ fine for him, now she's there, even if there's spaces where memories should be that she's filling in with the stories they all tell around the kitchen table at dinner when they've scrubbed the oil off of their hands. Mia jokes about it, says it doesn't really matter, but Letty's always sure to get the dirt out from under her nails before she sits down anyhow. 

She likes spending time in Dom's workshop, sure, with her hair tied back and her head under the hood of a car 'cause that feels kinda right, it feels like something she knows, something easy that she doesn't need her memories to understand 'cause it's right there in her muscles. But there's still times she feels like she should ask permission first, even though Dom says it's _their_ place, it's _their_ home, what's his is hers. When she says what she means about it, how sometimes it's like she's a stranger, like she can't even remember her own name, Dom just smiles a tight smile and puts his freakish huge arms around her and he says it's fine, everything's fine, it'll all be fine, she'll remember soon. She doesn't know if he's trying to convince himself or her.

She's meant to be getting a beer for Dom and Brian right now, not just for herself. She wanted one and the guys were so intent on playing frisbee with their neighbor's excitable labrador that'd sneaked into the yard that she laughed, told them she guessed chivalry was dead, and went inside to grab one for all three of them. Brian yelled thanks as the dog barreled into him and knocked him right into the path of a jet of water from next door's sprinklers, but that was pretty much not near enough to stop Brian even when his shirt was soaking wet. The guy's as much a force of nature as Dom is, Letty thinks. Nothing's gonna stop him.

There are times, around sunset, when Letty's sitting on the porch alone and Brian comes out to sit there with her. He likes to talk about things they did once upon a time, and she's heard the same stories more than once now, more than twice or maybe a whole lot more than that. He feels guilty, that much is for sure, and the way he tells the story it sounds like he should be except she knows the story from Dom's side, too, and these days she might even know herself if not her version of events. Brian didn't get her into the mess she's in. She got herself there, and she doesn't need to know that to _know_ that. 

She tells him no big deal, O'Conner, shit happens sometimes and then you live with it, but he smiles that same tight smile Dom smiles sometimes and says one day she'll remember. He says it like he hopes she will and he hopes she won't, at least not that part, the part he blames himself for, where she died but somehow didn't and turned up on the other side. The things they all say she did before, the person they all say she was, they sometimes seem familiar and then sometimes they don't. Mostly what she remembers is cars, racing, and Brian's always good for a race. When she can see him behind the wheel of his car through her window doing ninety, his smile's wide and bright and easy, excited, like all that matters is the race and not the fact she can't remember. 

She's meant to be getting a beer for Dom and Brian right now, but she lingers there with the refrigerator door wide open till she's half sure Mia's wondering what's going on inside her head. She shivers and she takes out one bottle instead of three and closes up the door again, and she thinks better of knocking off the bottle cap on the edge of the kitchen counter 'cause she knows how much Mia hates when people do that. Instead she uses the bottle opener that's on the Swiss army knife she's got in the pocket of her denim shorts, just big enough to be dangerous if it came to it, just small enough that it looks close enough to normal. She keeps its main blade sharp, just in case, uses the sharpener Mia keeps by the knife block in the kitchen and Mia pretends not to notice. Maybe the old Letty wasn't so paranoid, but the new one's been through a lot. Maybe the old one had, too, but the way they tell it she could've kicked anyone's ass with one hand behind her back. The way they tell it, she was a freaking superhero.

She doesn't go back outside. She offers Mia the beer in case she wants a sip but Mia just smiles and lifts her half-full glass of red wine and they clink them together, Mia's pretty glass and Letty's bottle of no-name beer Dom brought in from the store 'cause there was no Corona, and Letty's got an idea that maybe Corona's all they ever drank though she can't think why. Then Mia goes back to her herbs and Letty hops up onto the counter a little ways away, swinging her feet, flipflops dangling from her toes, her heels drumming against the cupboard doors. The beer's cool, at least. The bottle's cold in her hands. She rests it against her forehead and even if it doesn't taste right, it feels good.

Sometimes, she thinks maybe she remembers. Sometimes, she thinks she just wants to think she does. Sometimes, she wonders if she ever will, and she lies awake in bed at night with Dom snoring like a drain beside her but that's fine, by this point that's familiar, it's maybe even kinda endearing. She knows the old her loved him and she knows the new her loves him, too. She knows the old her was Brian's friend, and she knows the new her is his friend, too. 

The problem is, when they look at her, they're always searching for a sign she remembers. They're waiting for a day it'll all click into place and the girl they knew will grin and say _I remember now_ like it's Operation freaking Mindcrime and not retrograde amnesia. The doctors say maybe everything will come back, but then again maybe it won't. Dom and Brian say just wait, you'll see, it'll happen, give it time, and she tries. She really does. She tries till it hurts, till she wants to scream 'cause Dom talks about things like she knows, like she remembers that birthday or that job or that car he had back then but all she can do is picture the make and model like a page out of a book and sometimes, _sometimes_ , there's a flash of something else, his smile, a street, the view through a windshield of a place maybe she once knew that might even be this place, right here. 

She doesn't go back outside. Mia melts butter in a pan and starts cooking off the onions and the smell of it makes Letty's eyes tear up so Mia tosses her a napkin and she sits there, they stay there, no need to talk at all like Mia knows she wants company but not more words. She finishes the beer and grabs another while the guys are still outside and Mia has her taste what she's cooking, and it's good 'cause it always is. Mia loves to cook, and Letty doesn't need to remember to know that, all she needs is to see the smile on her face as she stirs the sauce, the way she shoos Dom and Brian out into the den when they come back inside and she closes the door behind them so they don't have to hear the two of them talk that loud way they do, where they don't realize they're getting louder. 

"You want to go for a drive tomorrow?" Mia asks, as she's getting out the plates for dinner, and Letty grins as she takes a swig of what's left of her second beer. 

"Sure," she says. "You wanna take your car or mine?"

Mia flashes her a wicked grin over her shoulder as she starts to drain the pasta in a cloud of steam. "How about both?" she says. "I'll race you." 

Letty doesn't have to reply; she nods and raises her bottle like some kind of a salute instead and then she gets down from the counter to help with the plates 'cause she can do that much at least. They both know Letty will win but that's not enough to stop them, and Letty knows she'll look forward to it. She'll look forward to the twists of the road once they get out of the city and the kick of the engine as she puts her foot down hard, her hands on the wheel, the way her heart races. She'll look forward to it for the rest of the night. She'll look forward, and for a while she won't _back_.

She loves Dom. Hell, maybe she even loves Brian, too. She understands what they want because mostly, she wants it too. She wants to be who they think she is. She wants to be a part of this family just the way they think she should be and not feel like she's an actor in a movie she never got the script for, like she's driving a race there's no way she can win. She thinks maybe what they remember's made her more than she ever was, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to know.

She loves Dom, but sometimes Mia's the only one who doesn't act like it'd be the end of the world if she doesn't remember: she'd include herself in that. Sometimes, she feels like everything depends on it, but Mia never acts that way. Mia takes her as she finds her, no expectations, whether she remembers or not. Sometimes, that's exactly what Letty needs. 

And sometimes, she thinks maybe that's what family is.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Guy de Maupassant: "Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist."


End file.
